Perry was accurate but misleading

By Patricia Kilday Hart/Houston Chronicle :
September 24, 2011

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A few decades ago, a teacher for a prestigious Washington, D.C., private school moonlighted as a tutor for the son of then-Sen. John Warner of Virginia at the time of his marriage to Liz Taylor.

One day, he was summoned to Ms. Taylor's boudoir to go over the family's calendar. Lounging as she nibbled on caviar, the Hollywood icon beckoned the tutor to sit at the foot of her bed and offered to share her afternoon feast. Then the phone rang. An old friend visiting town had tracked down the tutor at the Warners' home.

“What are you doing?” the friend asked.

Without missing a beat, the teacher replied: “I'm in bed with Liz Taylor eating caviar.”

I heard this story during a commencement speech by an Episcopal priest who, while swearing the story was true, hoped to make a point about honest communication. It's not good enough just to get your facts straight, it's important that you don't purposefully leave false impressions.

I was reminded of eating-caviar-with-Liz-Taylor Thursday night during the Orlando debate when Gov. Rick Perry told the story of his relationship with cancer victim Heather Burcham.

Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann repeated her charge that in 2007 Perry issued an executive order mandating the HPV vaccine for Texas girls because his former chief-of-state had gone to work as a lobbyist for Merck, the maker of the drug.

“I got lobbied on this issue,” Perry acknowledged. “I got lobbied by a 31-year-old young lady who had Stage 4 cervical cancer. I spent a lot of time with her. She came by my office, talked to me about this program.”

All of which was true. But it left the impression that Perry was moved by the woman's story to sign the order. In fact, three weeks before meeting Burcham, he had invoked the policy that ignited a firestorm of controversy with the Texas Legislature. Lawmakers thought the decision would best be left to parents, and filed bills to rescind the order.

That's when Burcham got involved. Wracked by an illness that would claim her life only six months later, she came to the Texas Capitol to advocate for the HPV vaccine.

“The vaccine has done its job if it saves one person from cancer, let alone knocks out cervical cancer altogether,” she told reporters. “It's my wildest dream come true that I get to maybe reach one person, that my life would not be in vain, that I have lived for a purpose and that I won't die and never have done anything.”

At the time, Burcham was living with the family of Houston businessman Craig Wilson.

“Heather started babysitting for us in 1997,” Wilson, the father of four daughters, told me last week. “We fell in love with her. She was kinda like a daughter to us.”

He visited the Capitol with Burcham, and saw a friendship blossom between her and Perry.

“He developed a relationship with her,” Wilson said last week. “Heather had his personal cellphone number. She talked to him all the time.”

Shortly after her visit to Austin, Perry invited her to visit a friend's ranch. There, he showed her how to fire a rifle, and took her for a spin on the back of a motorcycle — two things she had never experienced.

“He spent personal time trying to get some items on her bucket list crossed off before she died,” Wilson said. Perry kept in contact with Burcham until her death, and spoke at her memorial service — two months after the Legislature passed the bill striking his executive order.

Perry's focus on Burcham was an accurate — and yet misleading — explanation of his HPV order.

During a debate two weeks ago, he downplayed the significance of his campaign contributions from Merck, and gave one of the worst conceivable responses by taking offense it would be suggested he could be bought for a $5,000 contribution. A terrible response on two counts — it vastly understated Merck's donations to the political action committees associated with Perry, not to mention inviting the question of what a more suitable price would be.

With Burcham, we saw Perry at his best. In the Orlando debate, we saw his worst.

Given his dreadful reviews, I'm sure he'd like a do-over. If he gets one on the Merck question, let's hope he chooses the complete, not convenient, response: His order benefited a powerful lobbyist and his client, but he didn't back down because he met a young woman who convinced him it also happened to be the right thing to do.